


Be All My Sins Remembered

by AuntAgony



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Ascians (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Messy bedrooms, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Thancred Knows the Bro Code, Urianger is Bad at Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21656857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuntAgony/pseuds/AuntAgony
Summary: For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror,which we still are just able to endure,and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.— Rilke,The First Elegy
Relationships: Urianger Augurelt/Elidibus, Urianger Augurelt/Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn
Comments: 19
Kudos: 48





	1. Inelegant Gestures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an invitation is received and a great many words are used to say as little as possible.

Among the familiarity and close quarters between the Scions of the Seventh Dawn there were few things Urianger Augurelt prized more than his personal space.

His sleeping quarters-cum-workshop possess all the classic clutter of a terminal academian: a long worktable and half the floor were strewn artlessly with books, papers, notes, and half-assembled (or -disassembled) gadgets with no discernible purpose, many gathering no small amount of dust. The bed was nearly an afterthought, a glorified cot with bedding unmade and frequently gone entirely too long without changing. The walls were plain stone, bare saving a washed-out painting of a bland Dravanian skyline that had been hanging in the room when he claimed it after their move to the Rising Stones.

He allowed none past the threshold when he could manage it. His fellow Scions quickly learned not to bother trying and the cleaning staff had long given up in the face of his recalcitrant demeanor and impenetrable strangeness, giving his room a wide berth. Even Moenbryda he herded to the guest room set aside for her for their furtive and fumbling trysts, no matter how interested she had acted in his work and how keenly she had tried to pry into his projects. If one had asked him — and she had, repeatedly — he could offer no explanation saving that he simply did not feel comfortable.

It was a surprise, then, when he retired to his room one night to see an envelope sealed with black wax delicately perched on the ruin of one of his latest projects (a vast improvement on the aethersight goggles employed by many Scions, stymied by the fact that the kinds of crystals he would need to make it work did not technically exist) precisely where he would see it upon walking in.

He froze as several thoughts flowed into his mind gilded in equal measures of panic and anger. Someone had been in his room. Someone had written him a letter. And they left it here. In his room. _Someone had been in his room._

He took several deep breaths before plucking the letter from where it rested. The paper was textured and heavy, the wax so dark and matte he had to run his fingers over it to discern the seal pressed into it: an elaborately stylized design, round and symmetrical, framed by some kind of radial pattern. Wings, perhaps?

He pried the wax up, taking care not to break it. Within was a folded letter of the same heavy parchment and, more curiously, a slender, smooth crystal the size of his little finger, pinched in the middle in such a way that it resembled an hourglass in shape. A strange, opaque reddish-violet hue glittered within its vitreous surface, and immediately he pulled his goggles on and switched them on, examining it to confirm what he suspected already: dark aether, its chaotic whorls frozen into a peculiar configuration. The pinched portion seemed like a tension point in the pattern, some manner of lynchpin perhaps, and though he examined it as well as his crude tools would let him, he could not discern the purpose of the object.

Reluctantly, he set the crystal on his worktable and unfolded the letter, revealing neat and precise handwriting in rich midnight blue ink. He read it, eyebrows slowly rising. He read it again, and then a third time. Finally, he snorted, half contempt and half disbelief.

"Urianger?"

He flinched, letter and envelope slipping from his fingers, as Moenbryda's voice called to him from down the hall. "Are you bringing those schematics or not?"

"Pray wait but a moment, I am merely locating them," he said, nigh diving into his disorganized stacks of notes and scattering them until he found what he had come into his room for in the first place.

By the time he left with them in hand, the envelope and its contents had been buried and all but forgotten.

  


* * *

  


"This amplifier is misaligned," said Moenbryda, squinting through a loupe at the crystalline sphere in her hand.

"Art thou quite certain?" bristled Urianger. They both sat off in a corner in the commons, table strewn with diagrams and notes of some arcane significance among tools and instruments of varying complexity and obtuseness. Lamps burned brightly around them to drive off the shadows in the windowless place, and the sparseness of the crowd alone told them it must be quite late indeed. "I crafted it with mine own hands to thy precise specifications. It should be entirely adequate."

"Firstly, adequate isn't good enough for this. Secondly, you've damaged the lattice. Look for yourself if you like."

He did, mouth pressed into a stubborn line. Moments passed in silence as he became uncomfortably aware of her staring at him.

"So," she said lightly, "are you ready to talk about it yet?"

"I see no need. The lattice appears undamaged to mine own eye."

"I'm not talking about the crystal, Urianger."

He glanced up to see her resting forward on her elbows, brow furrowed pensively as she stared a hole through him. Urianger hesitated before setting the crystal and his tools down with a sigh, saying, "I have...considered thy words, yes." This was only half a lie in his mind; he had spent so much time and energy resolutely _not_ thinking about it that it very nearly counted as actually thinking about it.

"Look, I'm not asking you to _propose_ or something ridiculous like that," she said, and Urianger experienced a sickening sensation in his gut akin to missing a step and having _no idea_ how much further down the stairs went. "It just feels like you've been holding me at arm's length ever since I arrived. If it's about — well, about how we parted before, or something Master Louisoix told you, that's one thing, but if it's something I've done... Look, I wish you'd just tell me what it is."

"Must we have this conversation here and now?" murmured Urianger hurriedly. "'Tis not my preference to make a spectacle of my personal affairs, and there is much to do 'ere our many enemies enact some new foul plot."

"That's well enough. We can retire to _your room_ then to continue the conversation," she said, affecting a sweet smile that had the effect of pinning Urianger like a moth to corkboard. He froze, an unshakable if entirely unjustified sense of unfairness stealing over him. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Urianger spotted his last-ditch hope at salvation passing by and raised his voice to say, "Ah, Thancred. Late is the hour, but we would be pleased for thy company."

Thancred had in fact been heading in the direction of his room with no apparent intent of stopping. He took one look at the two, noted the mingled look of incredulity and irritation on Moenbryda's face and the pathetically desperate one on Urianger's, and pulled out a chair. 

"Charmed, my friends. And what is this mess you're ready to give Tataru a conniption with?"

  


* * *

  


Moenbryda's dark mood lifted as the next hour meandered on, Thancred asking questions just ignorant yet intelligent enough to lure her into describing the aether siphon and the principles that went into its construction. Urianger meanwhile busied himself with making another amplifier in relative silence, offering little commentary even as Moenbryda's frostiness over the sheer inelegance of his feint thawed.

It was later in the scant hours before dawn, after she had wordlessly but firmly guided him back to her room to mount and spear herself on his cock, after bringing the both of them to climaxes neither of them seemed wholly satisfied by, after she had rolled her back to him as he sat on the edge of her tiny bed; then, finally, haltingly, he spoke.

"'Tis not my intent to nurture a rift between us," he said, dragging each word from his tongue.

"Please, Urianger," said Moenbryda, "you're not Thancred, bless his lecherous soul. It's not like I think you're only interested in fucking me."

"Such vulgarity ill suits—"

" _Don't_ finish that sentence," she said firmly, though he could hear the smile in her voice. "I may have all but given up on reforming your incredibly outdated ideas about femininity, but that doesn't mean I have to deal with it."

Urianger released an exaggerated huff and she actually laughed. He felt the bed shift behind him as she sat up, felt warm hands encircle his shoulders.

"I value thy friendship," he said after a moment, and meant it. "Time and distance did not diminish my regard for thee. I do not wish for thee as merely... some manner of bedwarmer."

"I know, I know," she murmured, "it's alright, it's fine." The soft curtain of her hair brushed over his chest, and ilm by ilm she kissed her way up his throat as he let himself believe her, and if their first coupling had been unsatisfying the second at least had Thancred pounding on their shared wall for a little peace and quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers, but I'm afraid Moenbryda won't be sticking around for very long. Still, she's nice, right? Such a nice lady.


	2. The Woe of Scholars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > How, new, fearful, he was tangled  
> in ever-spreading tendrils of inner event:  
> already twisted in patterns, in strangling growths,  
> among prowling bestial forms. How he gave himself to it — Loved. 
> 
> — Rilke, _The Third Elegy_
> 
> In which an invitation is remembered and several things are broken.

Urianger's recognized mastery was not in aetherology, but he had known enough to if not keep up with Moenbryda then to at least realize which questions to ask. He knew the properties of white auracite and the techniques involved in its creation and refinement, and he understood the construction of the aether siphon she had so eagerly designed and built. He could extrapolate, from scant notes and observations, the properties of Tupsimati, teasing out the complex geometries describing its power. He could map out the wretched and uncompromising maths that outline the sublimation of aether, the potential energy in a body or a soul.

Thus it was in long hours that he learned at last the great and secret woe of scholars: mastery of the nature of reality does not grant mastery over the behavior of reality.

He knew how she had died, and knowing the how changed nothing.

So he did as he had always done and curled in on himself, furled and bound his mind in rigid and brittle routines in desperate hope that his pain would pass, pure and pearl-like and untouched, from his soul. He worked on projects, and wrote notes, and howled inside himself, and took his laundry out to be washed. He made preparations over the course of a week, neat and businesslike, to return to his proper rooms at the Waking Sands, but he never actually left. He hardly ever left his room at all.

One night, as he gazed mindlessly at a sheaf of notes without reading them, he heard a sharp rap on his door. With syrupy movements he stood and went to open it.

"Camille," he uttered in surprise. The Warrior of Light stood more than a full head shorter than he, their mingled Hyur and Elezen blood granting them a figure both petite and (enviably, thought Urianger, often and privately) androgynous, a feature they had long emphasized with cosmetics and clothing that suggested much but revealed nothing. Today, heavy violet cosmetics on their mouth and eyes softened their angular features, though he could see their fatigue beneath it.

"Hey. Urianger. Uh," they started. He simply waited, flat, dispassionate, while they took a deep breath. "Thancred's beating us all like dusty rugs at cards. We thought you might like to come help humble him a little."

"Wherefore might I do that?"

"You're good at cards. I remember playing with you and ah—" they halted, swerved, and hastily finished, "and, you know, the others. Before."

With Moenbryda, he finished for them. They had played with Moenbryda. She had taught him about cardsharping years ago in Sharlayan and it was one of the few things he'd gotten better than her at.

His face must have betrayed something, because their brow pinched and their mouth tightened. "You don't... you don't have to do this by yourself, you know. Grieve. We're your friends and... and it's okay to not be okay."

The surge of anger, hot and sudden, surprised him. It coursed through him in a molten wave that for scant seconds blotted out all else. And — and it wasn't _fair_ to be angry, he knew it wasn't, and he didn't even know where the anger came from, and he certainly had no cause to be angry at _them_ , and as his reasonable mind talked him through all this all he did was feel angrier and angrier at his colleague, his friend.

"Leave," he heard himself say tersely. "Please. Leave me be."

Camille nodded slowly, wordlessly, and left, and he shut the door behind them, hand trembling as he braced against the frame. A pang of something sharp and bright pierced his breast, a spear of ice in the river of fire that was his veins. He heard their footsteps in retreat and the sound echoed strangely to his ears, a distant and tinny report against the kettledrum of his heartbeat and the very air felt tight and thin and heavy, too much and not enough, there was _not enough air_ in this little room and with fingers numb and tingling he ripped the door back open, strode out, anything better right now than that little room.

The hall was dimly lit and he followed it to the common room where the murmur of voices out of sight made him pause.

"— tried, though. The poor dear just isn't handling it very well," said Tataru.

"Not as though we can blame him," said Thancred. "He was close to her, for all he dithered about their relationship. Probably closer to her than anyone else."

"You're one to talk about dithering," remarked Camille. "I just don't know what to do about it. He's hurting himself staying holed up like that but it's not like we can just take him by the ear and drag him outside."

"Well, he does need to get over it eventually," replied Thancred. "We need him. Not to be insensitive, but the _Scions_ need him."

"It's only been a couple of weeks. Have a little care," said Tataru a bit tartly.

"Not everyone can drink and whore their way through a personal crisis," added Camille in a practiced deadpan.

"Now that's bloody unfair—"

Urianger sighed, dragged his hand down his face, and returned with quick and rigid steps back to his room where he stared at the piles of papers and broken gadgets and things half-finished, heart pounding in crescendo. He pitched and hurled the gadgets to shatter against the walls, kicked over the piles of papers, swept every half-made thing off his worktable in a riotous clamor, body bent in a jerking rictus of mad and furious contempt for the useless detritus he had built up around himself.

It was then his eyes lit upon a parchment and envelope with its black wax seal, and the small, glittering crystal that had been enclosed within it, revealed by that hot moment of rage and desperation. He stilled, fury quenched by the chill of dread, and he bent to pick them up, to read that letter from that night what felt like a lifetime ago for a fourth time.

> Dear Master Urianger Augurelt, Archon of Sharlayan,
> 
> On behalf of the Ascians I bid you well. I hope you will forgive the crude and invasive means by which I delivered this missive, but it was imperative both that it come to rest in your hands alone and that you understand what it is within my power to do and thus the nature of my restraint. Yours has ever been a voice of wisdom and temperance among the Scions and it is that spirit of moderation I hope to speak to now.
> 
> Some time ago I extended my palm to the Antecedent, a gesture which she and your compatriots were perhaps understandably suspicious of, particularly considering the nature of our parting. I will not insult your intelligence by suggesting that you should trust me, but rather indulge me in a simple conversation. I earnestly believe that it is possible that no further blood need be shed between our companions.
> 
> I have included the means by which you may answer this summons. Merely break the crystal in twain and we shall speak in short order. I guarantee your safe passage; you shall not come to harm under my aegis.
> 
> I look forward to your response, whatever it may be.
> 
> Elidibus

He stared at the letter, still and silent, for a very long time, until heat began to rise in his gullet, a grasping, clawing wave of nausea, a drowning tide of misery and guilt.

_No further blood need be shed._

He took the crystal in hand and, wildly, heedlessly, desperately, madly snapped it in half, and all the world went black.


End file.
